Custom slideshow article for SmallBusiness.co.uk

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SmallBusiness.co.uk is published by Vitesse Media and is an information resource for small business owners. The site was redesigned in January 2013, and as a part of the requirements capture process, the publisher requested that image-based articles be presented as slideshows.

To deliver this feature we created a custom slideshow article in the Wide Area CMS. Because this article type was created for a particular purpose, it meant that we were able to add some simple features that made the content is easy to manage, and the content was then structured in a way that made the web page quick to build.

For the publisher, this meant that there was little impact on the re-design project in terms of cost and delivery time.

On the website, the slideshow article has a simple design and is easy to use, creating a story-board experience for site visitors.

Slideshow article editing

This article is as easy for content managers to create as it is for visitors to view. All they have to do is add words and upload images.

The CMS image editor lets them crop and re-size images to the correct size and aspect ratio, and the article confirms the dimensions of each image as it is dragged into the relevant slide slot.

The article format uses a concertina display style, so it is easy to jump from slide to slide. Editors can also change the order of the slides by dragging any of the slide headers into a new position.

Where appropriate, we also carry over styles from the website into the CMS style-sheets, so that editors can get a real feel for how their article will look as they write it.

Slideshow article creation

As will all custom articles, the slideshow article started life as a simple questionnaire, with each field created in an appropriate question style, with relevant validation settings and error handling all pre-configured.

The article is then set to create a response article called 'slideshow', and all that is left to do is to add styles to the CMS templates for the 'slideshow' article type, enable the article in the relevant CMS sections, and to add the article type to the content library that is used by our templating system to display content on html pages.

This is a simple example of our flexible approach to content management. For more information call us on 020 7631 9280.